With the approaching International Women’s day on March 08, the Minister for Woman and Child Development has been involving in hectic conferences, workshops, and making announcement in favour of women for over a week.
There do not arises questions to consider legalising of commercial sex or awarding licences to brothels, but would remain committed to combating human trafficking, the Minister said while talking at the conference of human trafficking.
The conference was organised by UN office on “Drugs and Crime” together with the “ministry of women and child development” considering “International Women’s Day,” scheduled to be celebrated tomorrow-on March 08.
She said that she was ready to legalise prostitutes or red light areas, only if the sex workers say their decision was informed. “The fact is their choice is not informed, but is forced due to various reasons comprising poverty as one of them,” she said.
By explaining ‘human trafficking’ it was said at the conference that it means recruitment, transport, transfer, harbouring of people by means of threat, use of force or other forms of coercion like abduction for the purpose of exploitation.
As per the UN estimates, nearly 1,50,000 people are trafficked across South Asia annually. Children and young women are lured with promises of a good job, marriage or stardom in the entertainment industry and instead they are forced into prostitution or slavery.
Since 1984 some organisations like the Bhartiya Patita Uddhar Sabha have been demanding the legalisation of commercial sex workers. “The government must accept this demand for at least the better health and education of the 5.4 million children of sex workers,” said Khairati Lal Bhola, president of the Sabha.
Chowdhary highly praised Finance Minister P Chidambaram for enhancing the fund allocation by 24 percent to her ministry. The fund will be used for the welfare and empowerment of women and child, she said.
Planning to award magistrates
Renuka Chowdhary also announced that her ministry is sincerely considering instituting awards for district magistrates who improve sex ratio in their districts with a view to correct the imbalanced sex ratio.
In order to check and control female foeticide, she said, “The ministry is also embarking on a massive level awareness and sensitisation programme on a sustained basis.
For this purpose many non-official organisations like NGOs, media, entertainment industries, spiritual leaders and youth will be involved on a massive scale.
Female Condoms @ Rs 5
On March 06, the Minister for Woman and Child Development announced a five-rupee female condom will now be spearheading India’s battle to control HIV spread among women.
For the first phase, the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) is procuring 15 lakh female condoms from UK's Female Health Company (FHC), which will be distribute among sex workers and housewives in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal over the next 8 months. Further a decision on a countrywide upscale will be undertaken after reviewing data from these four states.
About 40% of the 2.5 million HIV positive victims living in India are women. Most of them are unfortunate housewives, who don't look at their husbands owing to threat and commercial sex workers unable to negotiate with clients repudiating to use a condom.
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